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Well, you cannot use 2.0 because it doesn't have a DTD yet, there's not much real benefit of using XHTML 1.0 Strict over XHTML 1.0 Transitional and XHTML 1.1 really should be served as an application of XML like I do myself with XHTML Basic 1.0, etc.

So the answer is probably Transitional if you only serve it as text/html to all user-agents.

For now I would say don't use XHTML at all. There are no real benefits. Well, not on a majority of websites that use it, anyway. However, whether you use HTML 4.01 or XHTML 1.0, use Strict. You'll end up with a much easier to manage website.

Off Topic:

Uh oh, a lack of sleep is making me start to rant. Good thing my blog is down. :/

I disagree, the benefits of using xhtml might not be great for a website but it will greatly benefit the developer.

It will bring you more up to date with latest advancements in web standards.
It may open your work to more devices
It will help make you a better coder
It gives a good grounding for similar languages such as XML/XSL

As for the original question I would agree with xhtmlcoder and go transitional. Only go for strict if you are aware of all the possible pitfalls such as no target attribute for the anchor tag.

Octal - All your base-8 belong to us"Knowing is not enough, we must apply.
Willing is not enough, we must do." - Bruce Lee

If you don't need to open links in targets go with Strict, if you want to open links in targets go with Transitional, if you use frames go with Frameset.

I'm sure there are other implications, that I have not included, but that is the pattern I follow.

As far as not learning XHTML, whynot? It is the standard. May as well go ahead and get used to typing it now. My opinion is once you figure out the difference between HTML and XHTML you will never go back to HTML.

As far as not learning XHTML, whynot? It is the standard. May as well go ahead and get used to typing it now. My opinion is once you figure out the difference between HTML and XHTML you will never go back to HTML.

I second that opinion

Octal - All your base-8 belong to us"Knowing is not enough, we must apply.
Willing is not enough, we must do." - Bruce Lee

As far as not learning XHTML, whynot? It is the standard. May as well go ahead and get used to typing it now. My opinion is once you figure out the difference between HTML and XHTML you will never go back to HTML.

XHTML has 3 big benefits going for it:

Less forgiving than HTML/Stricter syntax

Leads to other XML-based languages

Can be used as input to transform your content into other formats with XSLT

However, if you don't use (or don't want to use) those features, then what's wrong with a valid HTML 4.01 site? Just because it's not the latest standard doesn't mean it's a horrible thing.

However, if you don't use (or don't want to use) those features, then what's wrong with a valid HTML 4.01 site? Just because it's not the latest standard doesn't mean it's a horrible thing.

Oh I have no problem with HTML 4.01. I have just been on an XHTML kick latley.

Though I will say that since someday everyone will have to comply with XHTML. I guess? Why not go ahead and start typing it out now. I am definetly no expert, but it seems to me that XHTML may actually be easier.

If you don't need to open links in targets go with Strict, if you want to open links in targets go with Transitional, if you use frames go with Frameset.

I'm sure there are other implications, that I have not included, but that is the pattern I follow.

As far as not learning XHTML, whynot? It is the standard. May as well go ahead and get used to typing it now. My opinion is once you figure out the difference between HTML and XHTML you will never go back to HTML.

That's my 2 cents.

Later
Johnny

Actually there is one point everyone should just scratch from the "to do" list and that's Frameset. Frames are bad, frames are nonsense, so why use them. I haven't used a frame (not even a little innocent inline frame) for the past 3 1/2 years and I sure don't miss them, not in the least bit.

Standard frames aren't bad at all and surprisingly can help accessibility in some circumstances. Then there is XFrames in general Frames should be avoided but they have their uses.

For example I was once asked by an IBM Lexmark technical employee to look at his frames for a Lexmark Print Server maintenance and configuration control panel, which was being used to configure Print Servers via an intranet web interface used by Lexmark itself - thus a frameset was more useful than a standard page.

They find semantic code easier to trawl through and an XML Processor renders XHTML when served with the correct MIME, generally XML Processors are faster rendering engines because they hate invalid markup.

I have heard that search engines find XHTML easier to crawl through. Is this corect or am I wrong?
If it is true, then I think it's a pretty good reason to be as strict as possible with your XHTML

Being as strict as possible helps, especially in the sense of moving your presentation to CSS, because all that's left afterwards is content on the page. This lowers the signal to noise ratio that search engines will see. However, whether or not you use XHTML to do this is irrelevant to search engines. A DOCTYPE doesn't get you higher PageRank; better and more focused content does.

Just thought I'd add my $.02. Until this morning, I had never really looked into XHTML. I read the above XHTML tutorial, followed the "How this Web Site was converted to XHTML" section, and mostly via a few global search and replaces I converted and validated a small, 6-page site to XHTML in about an hour and a half.

I like it, but I don't know if the fact that (for better or worse) I've always coded everything by hand has anything to do with it.